Chasing a frustrating string buzz, with a chuckle once sorted....

paulnb57

So, yesterday I changed the strings on a Strat, popped the neck off to adjust the heel end truss rod adjuster and as the neck had been off worked through everyrhing to set it back up to my normal settings, only to find a string buzz on the d string around the 5th to 7th......worked through everything again, same usual settings, still a buzz, sympathetic vibration? Stuffed a bit of rag in amongst the trem springs, still there, getting a bit pissed with it now, WTF is wrong here, then realised during the process I'd got a bit chilly and put on a fleece lined shirt, which has biggish buttons on the cuff and as I strummed away, my picking hand moved just enough for the button to contact the vibrating d string and cause the buzz...my how I laughed!.....
It's not always the guitar at fault!.....

ICBM

When you work on an amp, an unexpected random fuse blow is a worrying thing. It’s really necessary to find the cause, otherwise it will just do it again after you’ve returned it to the customer. You can spend at least an hour testing all sorts of things, but it just sits there, working perfectly.

Until you eventually notice that when you lean over the amp, the hood cord on your hoodie dangles into the chassis, and this new one you’re wearing today has a longer cord than usual and metal ferrules on it... and when you look very carefully at one of them, there’s a tiny electrical burn mark on the end.

That hoodie now has shorter cords with knots and no ferrules .

normula1

I used to work on some big IBM datacentre computers and it was mandatory to remove all watches, wedding rings etc. as even though the power supplies were relatively low voltage they had enough current capacity to burn your finger off if the ring caught on the terminals.

crunchman

ICBM said:

When you work on an amp, an unexpected random fuse blow is a worrying thing. It’s really necessary to find the cause, otherwise it will just do it again after you’ve returned it to the customer. You can spend at least an hour testing all sorts of things, but it just sits there, working perfectly.

Until you eventually notice that when you lean over the amp, the hood cord on your hoodie dangles into the chassis, and this new one you’re wearing today has a longer cord than usual and metal ferrules on it... and when you look very carefully at one of them, there’s a tiny electrical burn mark on the end.

That hoodie now has shorter cords with knots and no ferrules .

Need to live in a civilised part of the world, where the temperature is normal, and you can where a tee shirt instead of a hoodie.

Funkfingers

normula1 said:

even though the power supplies were relatively low voltage they had enough current capacity to burn your finger off if the ring caught on the terminals.

Not difficult to guess how that hazard was discovered.